DrCaitlyn Herrick

Dr Caitlyn Herrick is a clinical psychologist and associate research fellow, with over eight years of experience working across public and community mental health settings. Her work focuses on improving outcomes for adolescents with complex and co-occurring mental health presentations. She works across both public youth mental health and academic research, embodying the research–practitioner model to understand and address the challenges faced by young people and their families.

Her research interests include transdiagnostic and family-involved interventions for adolescents with complex, overlapping presentations, with a particular interest in the mechanisms that drive change and the barriers that limit the application of evidence-based approaches in real-world public mental health settings. She is committed to bridging the gap between clinical complexity and research translation, ensuring that interventions are empirically grounded, clinically meaningful and practically deliverable in frontline services.

Dr Herrick’s doctoral research investigated the intrapersonal factors involved in the cessation of non suicidal self injury (NSSI) using a multimethod approach spanning systematic review and meta-analysis, qualitative interviewing and reflexive thematic analysis, and quantitative modelling. Her findings identified key psychological processes, including self-efficacy, identity coherence, emotional clarity, and cognitive flexibility, that distinguish individuals who have ceased NSSI, offering promising targets for person-centred intervention development.

Her broader research contributions include work on the mental health and family functioning of frontline healthcare workers. She has experience in mixed methods research, lived experience and co-design approaches, mechanism-driven intervention development, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, qualitative interviewing and thematic analysis, quantitative modelling, and the translation of evidence into professional practice guidelines. 

Across her clinical and research roles, Dr Herrick aims to advance evidence-informed, family-involving approaches that support young people and families with complex needs and strengthen the integration of research and practice within public mental health systems.